The Pork
Malcom Church, Chef Proprietor of The Bear & Blacksmith, Chillington, gives his top tips for perfecting gravy and choosing the right cut of pork for a cracking roast lunch…
When it comes to sourcing pork, I would always recommend going to your local butcher. They can tell you exactly where the meat is from and what sort of life the pig has led. You don’t want a joint that is too fatty and it should be a nice dark colour – not a bright pink. The depth of colour shows that the animal has likely led a free-range life. Most people will use pork loin for their roast dinner but I swear by pork shoulder. It’s the most flavoursome joint and it has the right amount of fat content, which means you can get perfect crackling every time.
For home cooking pork shoulder, I would rub plenty of rock salt into the skin and then pop it into a really hot oven for around 20mins. After this, bring it back down to 170C/gas 3 and let it cook through. The longer and slower you cook the meat, the better. When you leave it to rest, don’t wrap it in tinfoil because it will undo all your hard work achieving the crispy crackling. You can always remove the crackling from the joint, re-salt it and pop it in the oven for around 10mins for added crunch.
The Gravy
A good gravy is the key to a successful roast. At the pub, we get a large stock pot and roast our beef or pork bones in it alongside all our leftover onion, parsnip and carrot peelings. We keep this boiling down and top it up whenever needed for a few hours. We also like to deglaze our roast pans with red wine and add this to the gravy for added flavour. When it’s ready, we sieve it and add some cornflour to thicken the consistency.